Known as Batteries-as-a-Service (BaaS), the product could help retail, logistics, healthcare, and manufacturing businesses avoid the financial losses triggered by the failure of battery-powered mobile devices ranging from barcode scanners to two-way radios and portable printers, Framingham, Mass.-based GTS said.

"A Lithium-ion battery has about 500 cycles of charge and discharge," JR Rodrigues, GTS' vice president of marketing, said in an interview. "As it nears that limit, its performance drops off a cliff, but all batteries look the same," so users have no way to tell how much performance a battery has left, he said.

To solve that puzzle, GTS' service includes on-site battery inventory analysis and removal of bad batteries. The package uses GTS' Tester and Mobile app to replace batteries when and where they are needed, and uses its Battery Color Coding system to identify, replace, and recycle aging batteries by using a unique color each year instead of the traditional battery color, reducing the amount of bad batteries in circulation, GTS said.

"If a battery is not good, it's a paperweight," Rodrigues said. "Whether it's for a car, a flashlight, a remote control, or a smartphone, all rechargeable batteries are packages of chemicals that degrade over time, build up impedance, and reduce their capacity to hold a charge."

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